Notes from America with Kai Wright

He went to prison at age 19. When released, he had to learn how to be a father to two Black sons with very different life experiences. His letters to them have lessons for us all. 

Read more from Shaka Senghor in his book, Letters to the Sons of Society: A Father's Invitation to Love, Honesty, and Freedom, available now. Audio included in the episode excerpted courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio, read by Shaka Senghor. 

Companion listening for this episode:

Jason Reynolds Needs to Be Useful (7/18/2022)

The YA author talks about his successes, fears, and his new podcast that explores his relationship with his mother.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Which election did you care about the most, and why? We want to hear your stories.

Next month, we’re doing an episode about how we can make voting better. Is it an issue of motivation, or something else? So send us your stories, about any kind of election, political or not. It could be an election for a sports team, to the local PTA, or for your favorite reality competition show. Send us a voice recording to [email protected]. We hope to use your stories during an upcoming episode.

*And stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here. 

Companion listening for this episode:

Digital Life Is a Moral Mess (8/22/2022)It seems like digital technology – from Facebook to cryptocurrency – could do great harm to society. Should that change how, and if, we use it?

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

A listener voicemail sends the show’s Senior Digital Producer Kousha Navidar on a search for moral clarity with philosopher and senior lecturer in ethics and public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Christopher Robichaud. Then, Shirin Ghaffary, senior reporter at Recode and co-host of the podcast Land of The Giants, shares the story of Facebook, and why it has been so hard of them to respond to the damage their technology has created.

*You can read more about Land of the Giants, and hear new episodes, here.

*And stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here. 

Companion listening for this episode:

The Promise and Failure of Cryptocurrency (7/11/2022)

Cryptocurrency promised to democratize the financial world by giving people equal access to banking tools. It has potential, but also a long way to go.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Host Kai Wright checks in with producer Regina de Heer about our summer playlist. Hear the contributions from listeners, and some folks on our team, about their songs of the summer and why they chose it. Stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here. And keep the song submissions coming by sending us your own summer song recommendations. Record a voice memo with your name, location and the story or memory you associated with your song then email it as an attachment to [email protected] to have your song included in the playlist — and our next update. 

Companion listening for this episode:

Let Us Take You on an Pop Escapade (7/21/2022)

Joy. Freedom. Resilience. We kick off a summer playlist project with selections from the Black women who have defined pop.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Host Kai Wright speaks with Joseph Osmundson, microbiologist, activist, writer, professor at New York University, and author of Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022). They welcome listener questions about the state of the monkeypox outbreak, and the polarizing narrative surrounding the LGBT communities that the virus is disproportionately affecting. 

A special thanks to Kali, Michael, Justin, Larry and Daniel – LGBT community leaders at the forefront of the monkeypox response in the Atlanta Metro Area – who participated in our listening session.

Companion listening for this episode:

Michael Calvert’s Good, Too Short Life (8/12/2022)

What can we learn from the HIV pandemic? We revisit a conversation from a year of living with COVID-19.

*And stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here. 

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

What can we learn from the HIV pandemic? We revisit a conversation from a year of living with COVID-19.

Back at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, senior editor, Karen Frillmann was reminded of life in this city in the 1980s. She reached back into the far corners of a closet in her apartment, and dug out a recording that she made decades ago. In this segment, Karen shares parts of that intimate conversation, as an act of remembrance.

Companion listening for this episode:

What Could Go Wrong? Everything (And It’s Ok) (8/8/2022)

What zombie movies can teach us about our era of perpetual crisis, and other lessons from a disaster management specialist.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

What zombie movies can teach us about our era of perpetual crisis, and other lessons from a disaster management specialist.

Former Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security under President Obama, and current professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Juliette Kayyem joins host Kai Wright to help us make sense of our current age of constant disasters. Learn what tools we have at our disposal based on her new book, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters.

Companion listening for this episode:

The Wolf Pack of White Nationalism (5/23/2022)There are no “lone wolves” in the terrorist violence of white identity politics. So what’s that mean for white people who want to confront it?

*And stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here. 

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

In 2020, Michael Tubbs lost his reelection campaign after capturing the nation’s attention. But he hopes the lessons he learned can inspire future generations of local leaders. Find out more about End Poverty in California on their website. 

Companion listening for this episode:

How to Start Saving the World (8/1/2022)Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has a simple request for the 93 percent who know there’s a crisis: Talk to each other about it more and start with your values.

*And stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Scientist Katharine Hayhoe has a simple request for the 93 percent of people who know there’s a climate crisis: Talk to each other about it more and start with your values. Plus, producer Regina de Heer is joined by members of the Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions to hear how these ideals are put into practice on a local level.

Find more in Professor Hayhoe’s bestselling book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World and her Global Weirding series on Youtube. The Global Weirding segment mentioned in this episode can be found here.

Companion listening for this episode:

Nothing You Do Alone Will Save the Climate (9/20/2021)

New science finds we’ve got less than a decade to avoid catastrophe. Activist and author Bill McKibben says the only solutions that can beat that deadline are collective.

*And stream our Summer Playlist on Spotify here. 

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Two mothers lost their daughters to gun violence but received disparate levels of attention. Now, they’re using their stories – and their grief – to inspire others.

WNYC correspondent Tracie Hunte introduces host Kai Wright to two mothers – Nelba Márquez-Greene and Celeste Fulcher – who both lost their daughters to gun violence. Their stories teach us about the exacting toll of gun violence, and the power grief yields to stir change and inspire progress.

Companion listening for this episode:

The Culture of Gun Violence (7/25/2022)

And why it must change to make any political progress on gun control.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.